Posters are now being accepted for the Regenerative Medicine and Tissue Engineering Symposium, co-organized by the Institute for Cell Engineering and Translational Tissue Engineering Center. The symposiumwill be held from 8:30 to 5 p.m. October 7, 2014 in the Mountcastle Auditorium, Pre-Clinical Teaching Building. Our keynote speakers are Dr. Irv Weismann from Stanford University and Dr. Arnold Caplan from Case Western Reserve University. Other speakers to be announced.

Students, postdoctoral fellows and faculties are encouraged to attend this one day symposium and present their work related to regenerative medicine during the lunchtime poster session. Please submit a short poster abstract to Eleni Georgantonis at egeorga1@jhmi.edu by September. 15. Awards for the best posters from students and postdocs will be presented at the end of the day.

The event is co-hosted by INBT affiliated faculty Jennifer Elisseeff and Guo-li Ming.

Editor’s Note: The following is a summary of one of the talks from the 2013 Nano-bio Symposium hosted by Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology held May 17. This summary was written by Christian Pick, a doctoral candidate in the chemical and biomolecular engineering laboratory of Joelle Frechette. Look for other symposium summaries on the INBT blog.

The fundamental goal of regenerative medicine is to allow the body to restore normal function to damaged or diseased tissues. Tissue scaffolds provide a structure for cells to grow on to accomplish this task. The pinnacle of scaffold function would be for the tissue grown from a scaffold to be completely indistinguishable from natural, undamaged tissue.

In order to improve scaffolds, researchers need to better understand how scaffolds interact with the body. Peter Gabriele, Director of Emerging Technology at Secant Medical, discussed FT-IR microscopy, which is a unique tool that can help researchers with this very task.

Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy is a powerful technique for analyzing the chemical identity of materials. FTIR spectroscopy has been used for years in forensic analysis for identifying unknown samples. FTIR microscopy combines the functionality of FTIR spectroscopy with optical microscopy.

For the field of regenerative medicine, this means that the surface functionality of a scaffold can be mapped and studied throughout its entire lifetime: from production through degradation in-vivo. For instance, FTIR microscopy can be used to analyze surface modifications made to a scaffold during fabrication.

Additionally, it can be used to track tissue formation in implanted scaffolds. As an example, Mr. Gabriele described studies on “biorubber” or poly(glycerol sebacate) (PGS). FTIR microscopy has been used to identify collagen integration within the polymer during implantation as well as map the erosion of the material once implanted. Through the use of tools such as FT-IR microscopy, researchers can continue to expand the functionality of tissue scaffolds.

Three of the 11 presenters are affiliated faculty members of the Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology. This event is sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences. There is no cost but reservations are required. Working press as well as freelance writers are invited to attend.

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